Kojima asked for John Carpenter’s “blessing” to use Snake

John Carpenter gave Hideo Kojima permission to use Kurt Russell’s character in Escape from New York as an inspiration for Solid Snake.

Speaking with CVG, Carpenter said the game creator wrote him a letter stating he wanted to use Snake Plissken as the basis for his hero in the Metal Gear solid series.

“[Hideo Kojima] has written me and asked me for my blessing on the game and I wrote him back [to say] ‘how about it?”, he said.

“He’s a very nice man.”

Interestingly, Kojima didn’t ask for permission until 10 years after the first game, with Ripten suggesting that the delay was likely due to Metal Gear’s introduction of voice acting, along with more detailed characters and story.